Review of The Great Earth Day Carpool Project

"The Great Earth Day Carpool" project has students find the average number of cars in the school parking lot and compare this average with the number of cars on Earth Day. Students encourage teachers to carpool to work to reduce carbon emissions. Estimated carbon emission reductions are calculated and posted online. The project suggests students create a powerpoint to show teachers about the benefits of carpooling. Other promotional activities would also be appropriate.

I like the interdisciplinary nature of this project. Integrating math and science in a service learning type project makes this project engaging. The wiki allows those who register the opportunity to edit their own information and use other recordings to compare information. It would also be interesting for students to compare the amount of carpooling and other variables at each school. After the project is completed, students could look up demographic information about specific schools to analyze trends in the information. They might be able to compare school location, amount of carpoolers, and air pollution data from other sources.